It's cleaners all the way down!

How can we care for each other within a system that doesn't care about us? In this episode, Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn get to grips with birth, death and all the social reproduction in between.

When did we start putting our elders in care homes instead of our own homes? What happens when childcare is socialised instead of privatised? And why do we seem to be talking about "self-care" more than caring for others?

The gang consider these questions and more in a suitably extended episode, with help from Foucault, feminist theory and caring tunes by Kate Bush, Bill Withers and Rihanna.

Music: Vashti Bunyan - 'Lately' / Bill Withers - 'Lean On Me' / Kate Bush - 'The Man With the Child In His Eyes' / George McRae - 'Rock Your Baby' / The Beatles - 'When I'm 64' / Sam and Dave - 'Hold On I'm Coming' / Rihanna - 'Umbrella'

Books, podcasts & videos: Joan Tronto - Caring Democracy / Michel Foucault - The Care of the Self / The Care Collective - The Care Manifesto / David Graeber on Novara FM / Plan C - WTF is Social Reproduction?

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

ACFM Trip 26: Care

In part two of our three-part interview on Jeremy's new book - co-written with Alex Williams - Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back) we discuss what Jeremy and Alex call 'actually existing neoliberalism' - the distinct form of the ideology fostered by the hegemony of finance and Big Tech through the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. We also discussed how neoliberal ideology was propagated, as much through material practices as through the mass media, and we touched on the transformative effects of neoliberal ideology on music culture.

Politics Theory Other

Hegemony Now (part two) - w/ Jeremy Gilbert

ACFM reunite for spooky season with one thing on their minds: the horror, the horror!

Nadia, Jeremy and Keir embark on a historical, literary and cinematic exploration of scary stuff. Why do (some) humans love to be terrified? What can horror teach us about the nature of the universe? What do the latest crop of scary movies say about the fears plaguing our society?

From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Jordan Peele's 'Get Out', from H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror to Sigmund Freud's idea of the uncanny, the gang discuss books and ideas spanning several centuries – along with music from Bauhaus, Gravediggaz and Metallica.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM. Remember you can find the  version of this show on Novara Media's SoundCloud.


Books: Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness / Sigmund Freud – The Uncanny / Susan Hill – The Woman in Black / Stephen King – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft / H.P. Lovecraft – Various / Paul Santilli – 'Culture, Evil, and Horror’ / Mary Shelley – Frankenstein / Bram Stoker – Dracula / Horace Walpole – The Castle of Otranto / H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds

Films: Everything Everywhere All At Once / Get Out / Halloween / Invasion of the Bodysnatchers / Night of the Living Dead / Poltergeist / Rosemary's Baby / White Zombie

Music: Dave Matthews Band - 'Halloween' / Bauhaus - 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' / Warren Zevon - 'Werewolves of London' / Jegsy Dodd - 'A Scouse Werewolf in London' / Metallica - 'Enter Sandman' / Ray Parker Jr - 'Ghostbusters' / Gravediggaz - 'Diary of a Madman' / Insane Clown Posse - 'Hocus Pocus' / Black Sabbath - 'Paranoid'

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 28: Horror

The welfare state was founded in the postwar period, seemingly as payment for a profound national sacrifice. Strengthening it has been a goal of the Left for decades. The argument is as simple as it is radical: the wealth of the nation must be shared among its people. But where did its wealth come from?

Gurminder K. Bhambra, Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies at the University of Sussex, argues that the wealth of the welfare state was plundered from the British Empire. Colonial subjects were made to pay taxes and give it their work and resources, but they were then refused its help. And now, migration politics in Britain assumes that the descendants of colonial subjects are entitled to nothing.

So if the wealth in the welfare state was stolen, what should the Left now try to do with it?

In this week's Novara FM, Gurminder K. Bhambra takes Eleanor Penny from a history of global plunder to a future of global justice.

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

Novara FM: History's Biggest Benefits Cheat w/ Gurminder K. Bhambra

The Aids Coalition To Unleash Power, better known as ACT UP, is one of the most effective social movements in American history. New York City author and activist Sarah Schulman has returned many times to the lessons and provocations of this radically decentralised, unapologetically confrontational direct action group, which was founded in 1987 with one goal: to end the Aids crisis.

Yet through her work on ACT UP, Schulman has documented not just the legacy of Aids activism and alternative queer culture but their gradual erasure. And the process of forgetting, she says, is intimately connected to the processes of gentrification that have captured our cities and our minds in the last three decades.

In this episode, Schulman expands on ideas from her 2012 memoir The Gentrification of the Mind and her recent political history of ACT UP, Let The Record Show, to speak to Eleanor Penny about activism, queer culture, urbanity, global health and how cities produce revolutionary ideas. For more on the history of ACT UP, visit the oral history archive.

Novara FM: There Was No Theory, It Was All Action w/ Sarah Schulman

Cutting-edge research has recently revealed that festive movie The Muppet Christmas Carol is actually based on a book. Many are now speculating that there may even be historical context at play. But what could it be? To unwrap the politics of A Christmas Carol, Eleanor Penny is joined by James Butler, co-founder of Novara Media and a contributing editor at the London Review of Books. 

Together they discuss the hungry 1840s, deflationary economics, Scrooge's miserly capitalism and why Charles Dickens' conversion story is our most enduring ghost of Christmas past.

Happy Christmas from everyone at Novara Media!

Novara FM: A Christmas Carol w/ James Butler

In the midst of Britain’s biggest wave of industrial action in years, the gang turn their attention to the long and bloodied history of strikes. Who do we find on the picket line? Nadia, Keir and Jeremy explore a lineage that stretches back hundreds of years, from matchgirls to miners, from 1840s century Chartists to 2020s university lecturers, and from smoggy cities to leafy suburbs.

Along the way they ask whether 18th century sailors were the original tech workers, why Britain’s only general strike was a failure, and if civilisation itself might have started with a sex strike. Plus, the gang discuss their favourite pro-union hits from Paul Robeson, Judy Collins, The Flying Pickets and more.

Want more? Get the ACFM newsletter: novara.media/ACFMnewsletter
Find our complete Spotify playlist – just search ACFM.

Music: Strawbs - 'Part of the Union' / Florence Reece - 'Which Side Are You On?' / Judy Collins - 'Bread and Roses' / Bev Grant - 'We Were There' / The Flying Pickets - 'Only You' / Paul Robeson - 'Joe Hill'

Books and pamphlets: William Benbow - Grand National Holiday, and Congress of the Productive Classes / E. P. Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class

Films: Pride / Made in Dagenham

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 31: Strikes

The ACFM groupmind went into overdrive on last week's Trip, a wide-ranging conversation about the long and violent history of strikes. This time, Nadia, Jem and Keir take a closer look at cultural representations of worker organisation – that is to say, they sat themselves down with a huge stack of old movies and an extra-large bucket of opinions.

From blacklisted Hollywood dramas to bawdy British comedies, the gang survey nearly 100 years of strikes on screen – courtesy of directors like Danny DeVito, Sergei Eisenstein, Barbara Kopple and Boots Riley – and consider the changing public attitudes to labour and capital.

This episode contains some spoilers, so if you're not sure what happens to Billy Elliott in the end, proceed with caution...

Get bonus content from this episode and enhance your weird left experience by signing up to the ACFM newsletter: novara.media/ACFMnewsletter

Films: Strike / The Man in a White Suit / Salt of the Earth / I’m Alright Jack / The Working Class Goes To Heaven / Carry On At Your Convenience / The Rank and File / Tout Va Bien / Norma Rae / Matewan / Riff Raff / Hoffa / Billy Elliott / Made In Dagenham / The Full Monty / Pride / Sorry To Bother You

ACFM Microdose: Strikes on Screen

In The UK, the last few decades have shown the steepest decline in trust in the media globally, second only to Egypt. How did we get here? Is it as simple as Rupert Murdoch wielding his malice more fervently here then elsewhere? Or are there insidious cultural factors that meant our newspapers, and increasingly our broadcasters, were destined to be made more boring, inaccurate and corrupt?

Downstream: How We Ended Up With The Worst Media In The World w/ Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani

Cory Doctorow — returning champion, friend of the show, and author of the new novel Red Team Blues — joins us to chat about fiction (science), finance (crypto), forensics (accounting), and much more. You never knew forensic accounting could be so radical and thrilling, but Red Team Blues is an immanent critique of techno-financial capitalism in the guise of a page ripping novel. We cover a lot of ground, all of it fascinating, as we always do when Cory comes on TMK.

••• Buy Red Team Blues: https://craphound.com/shop/
••• Follow Cory: https://twitter.com/doctorow 
••• Cory’s blog: https://pluralistic.net/ 

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Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

257. Red Team Blues (ft. Cory Doctorow)

In 1999 in the wake of the Kosovo conflict Gilbert Achcar published a book titled 'The New Cold War: The World After Kosovo'. At the time, describing tensions between the United States, Russia and China in terms of "a cold war" seemed to many to be outlandish hyperbole, or very premature at best. Now, of course the use of the term to describe the global situation is increasingly commonplace, but if we are indeed in a cold war - the question arises - when did it begin? Should it be dated in Russia's case to the 2008 Georgia war, in China to the rise of Xi Jinping and the repression in Hong Kong - or do we need to think back much further? 

In today's episode Gilbert Achcar joins the show to discuss his new book, 'The New Cold War: The US, Russia and China - From Kosovo to Ukraine', in which he builds upon his earlier work to argue that the current situation is rooted in events and key decisions made during the 1990s, including the devastating collapse of the Russian economy, the failure to create a new security architecture in Europe after the end of the cold war, and in increasing US-China tensions over Taiwan and other security matters, which were obscured by the deepening economic integration of the two states at the time. In the following interview we discuss these topics, as well as why Gilbert thinks its appropriate to describe Vladimir Putin's regime as neofascist, why recognising NATO enlargement as being a vector for Russian nationalism does not in any way justify the invasion of Ukraine, and we also talked about what Gilbert thinks a more just international order might look like.

Novara FM: A Christmas Carol w/ James Butler

Novara Media

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